Members and officers must declare any pecuniary or
personalinterest in any business on the agenda. They should also
make declarations at any stage such an interest becomes apparent
during the meeting. Consideration should be given to leaving the
meeting if the nature of the interest warrants it. If in doubt please contact Democratic Services
before the meeting.

Minutes:

38.1 In
accordance with the code of conduct, Mr Burrett and Mrs Mullins
declared personal interests in the item on the Annual Report of the
West Sussex Pension Fund, as a deferred member and member of the
West Sussex Local Government Pension Scheme respectively.

The Committee is asked to consider the
recommendations of the Working Group set up in June 2018 to
consider a request from the member for Lindfield & High Weald
for his division to fall entirely within one County Local
Committee.

40.1 The
Committee considered a report by the Chairman of the Working Group
set up in June 2018 to review the impact of changes to the
configuration of County Local Committees (CLCs) introduced from May 2017 and to consider a
request from Mr Lea, the member for Lindfield & High Weald, for
his division to fall entirely within one CLC (copy appended to the signed
minutes).

40.2 Mr
High, the Chairman of the Working Group, attended the meeting and
introduced the report. Mrs Millson and
Mrs Purnell, the other two members of the Group, were also in
attendance. Mr High commented that,
whilst the Group had had sympathy for Mr Lea’s request,
recreating three CLCs in the Mid Sussex
area would not prevent Mr Lea sitting on more than one
committee. It was not possible to move
the whole of Mr Lea’s division into one CLC without negative impacts, particularly due to
the community ties within it. The
Working Group felt that any adjustment to the number of
CLCs in Mid Sussex should not be done
in isolation from the rest of the county and it proposed a full
review of CLCs to be carried out after
the local elections in 2019. Mr High
particularly commended the proposed development of best practice
guidance, set out in paragraph 2.6 and recommendation (3) of
the report, to the Committee.

40.3 Mr
Acraman expressed support for returning to three CLCs in Mid Sussex on the basis of the length of
agendas of the current two committees which meant that the business
was not covered adequately. In his
view, in rural areas, too large a CLC
meant that there was little common knowledge or shared interest in
issues across the whole area.
Mr Acraman highlighted the degree of local support from
county, district and parish councillors for a third, central
CLC. He
also questioned the resource cost of £8,500 in paragraph 3.2
of the report which he felt was too high. The Head of Democratic Services said the estimate
was based on the cost of Democratic Services officer time rather
than meeting venues and travel costs and reminded members that
staff time off in lieu for evening work was still a cost to the
service.

40.4 Mrs
Millson said the Working Group was recommending the exploration of
other ways of engaging the public and stakeholders including
services calling public meetings on issues of local
concern. The Leader agreed that in some
cases taking a contentious issue to a CLC might not be the best option and said the
executive would look at whether using CLCs in those instances was the best use of
resources.

40.5 The
Committee thanked the Working Group and supporting officers for
producing an excellent report. Whilst
understanding the issues raised, members supported the
Group’s view that to change the pattern of CLCs in Mid Sussex in isolation from the rest of
the county would create anomalies and that no change should be made
in advance of a full ...
view the full minutes text for item 40.

Following a request from Mrs Mullins, the
Committee is asked to consider whether it wishes to investigate the
introduction of substitutes on Select Committees.

Minutes:

41.1
Following a request from Mrs Mullins, the Committee considered a
report by the Director of Law and Assurance which asked whether it
wished to investigate the reintroduction of substitutes on Select
Committees (copy appended to the signed minutes).

41.2 Dr
Walsh, the Group Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, welcomed the
report and said the lack of substitutes was particularly acute for
the smaller parties and their reintroduction would be a sensible
and positive way forward. He stressed,
however, that there should be rules around the operation of
substitutes including that notification of a substitution should be
given to the chairman or clerk in advance.

41.3
Mrs Mullins said that all members took their commitment to
membership of select committees seriously and only missed a meeting
when absolutely necessary. When, on
occasions, it happened, it was not good for democracy if a
political party was not represented in scrutinising an issue.

41.4 The
Committee noted that the County Council was out of line with
neighbouring authorities in not having substitutes for select
committees. Concern was expressed that
substitutes were sometimes unable to contribute effectively to
meetings if they only attended occasionally. It was felt that if they were reintroduced there
would need to be named substitutes and clear rules on how the
system would operate.

41.5 The
Committee therefore requested a report be brought to the next
meeting setting out the reasons for the previous abolition of
substitutes on select committees and putting forward, for
consideration, a proposal for their reintroduction.

41.6 Resolved – That proposals
for the reintroduction of substitutes on select committee be
brought to the next meeting.

The Committee is asked to recommend to the
County Council that a delegation be agreed for the
non-Executive committees to give them the power to delegate
a function to another local authority.

Minutes:

42.1 The
Committee considered a report by the Director of Law and Assurance
which proposed that it recommend to the County Council that a
delegation be agreed for the non-Executive
committees to be given the power to delegate a function to
another local authority (copy appended to the signed minutes).

42.2 The
Director of Law and Assurance proposed that the appropriate
delegations should be included in the terms of reference of the
non-Executive committees in the Scheme of Delegation. It was noted that, although it was unlikely that
some of those committees would ever need to use the power, for the
sake of consistency, it was recommended that they all have the
option.

42.3 The
Committee requested that the power should be exercised only on the
recommendation of the Director of Law and Assurance.

42.4 Resolved – That the County Council be recommended that the terms of
reference of the Governance, Standards, Planning, Rights of Way and
Regulation, Audit and Accounts Committees be amended to include the
following:

‘To delegate powers, when appropriate and on the
recommendation of the Director of Law and Assurance, to another
local authority including a borough or district council and to be
able, subsequently, to review, amend or withdraw that
delegation.’

43.1 The
Committee considered a report by the Director of Finance,
Performance and Procurement on the Annual Report and accounts of
the West Sussex Pension Fund for the year ended 31 March 2018 (copy
appended to the signed minutes).

43.2 Members congratulated the members of the
Pensions Panel and supporting officers on the excellent performance
of the Fund which, at a funding level of 105%, was
exceptional. The Committee praised the
approach taken to investment and the consistent top performance of
the Fund.

43.3 It was noted that there was some level of
uncertainty about the impact of the new pension fund pooling
arrangements but it was hoped that the high performance of the West
Sussex fund would provide a good bench mark for the work of the
pool.

43.4 Resolved –
That the Annual Report and Accounts, attached at Appendix 1 to the
report, be noted.

To receive the regular reporton the work of the Group, member development activities and
member training and development priorities and
plans.

Minutes:

44.1 The
Committee considered the regular
reporton the work of the Group,
member development activities and member training and development
priorities and plans by the Chairman of the Group (copy
appended to the signed minutes).

44.2 Members
discussed how best to try to increase attendance at Member Days
which were considered to be a crucial part of briefing members on
wider issues for the Council. The Head
of Democratic Services said there were plans to experiment with
short films or podcasts of key points from Member Days. The Committee suggested it might be helpful if
attendance figures for Member Days were made available to group
leaders so that they could monitor the attendance of their
members.

44.3
Resolved – That the report be noted.

45.

Report of Urgent Action

To note action taken by the Director
of Law and Assurance, in consultation with the Chairman, as
follows:

Response to
Consultation on Horsham District Council Polling District
Review

Approval to the County
Council’s support for the aim of the District Council to
change the division boundary between Horsham East and Horsham Hurst
Divisions so that all of Station Road will be located in Horsham
Hurst from 2021.

Response to
Consultation on Horsham District Council Community Governance
Review

Approval to the
County Council’s comments on Horsham District Council’s
Community Governance Review which proposes to change the boundary
between Shipley and Southwater parishes.

45.1 The
Committee noted action taken by the Director of Law and Assurance,
in consultation with the Chairman, as follows:

Response to
Consultation on Horsham District Council Polling District
Review

Approval to the County
Council’s support for the aim of the District Council to
change the division boundary between Horsham East and Horsham Hurst
Divisions so that all of Station Road will be located in Horsham
Hurst from 2021.

Response to
Consultation on Horsham District Council Community Governance
Review

Approval to the
County Council’s comments on Horsham District Council’s
Community Governance Review which proposes to change the boundary
between Shipley and Southwater parishes.

46.

Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting of the
Committee will be held at 2.15 p.m. on Monday, 21 January 2019
at County Hall, Chichester.

Minutes:

46.1 The
Committee noted that the next meeting would be held at
2.15 p.m. on Monday, 21 January 2019.